Lament of an Aphrodite
by HaloNoir
Summary: Elizabeth is addicted to love, and it ruins the dream she had. Set to the song Lament by Tim Rice. Slightly AU and spoilers for AWE.


Title: **Lament of an Aphrodite**

Disclaimer: Characters and lyrics are not mine.

"_The choice was mine, and mine completely,_

_I could have any prize that I desired,_

_I could burn with the splendour of the brightest fire._

_Or else – or else I could choose time."_

Sixteen year old Elizabeth Swann lay on the green grass of her garden staring into space. She was prone to doing this, finding her life so very dull at times, and feeling the need to retreat into her little fantasy bubble. Here she was married, no need for hunting down the right suitor – she already had him. So what if he looked, sounded and acted like one James Norrington? It doesn't mean that she loved him. Not really. She also, in her daydreams, had just two children, a nice round number; they were, naturally, a boy and a girl. The girl was Gwendolyn and had dark, curly hair and green eyes, like her brother and like her father. Thomas had the same striking features of her husband but the fairer hair of his mother. She was interrupted from her world by a deep voice coming closer. Picking herself up, she looked down at the grass stains on her dress, deciding that it wouldn't do to let her fantasy husband see her like this – and dashed off to get ready.

"_Remember, I was very young then,_

_And a year was forever and a day,_

_So what use could fifty, sixty, seventy be?"_

Elizabeth's eighteenth birthday party passes in a swirl of gowns and wigs, and her dreams have changed slightly. When she dances with James Norrington her dream world is frighteningly close, and the details begin to change. She still wants marriage and children. But more – she wants to be loved completely. It's as if the Captain's adoration is a drug, she must have more. There is only so much that one man can give though, and before she settles down with him, she needs others to love her, she thinks as he would-be husband spins her.

"_I saw the lights and I was on my way._

_And how I lived, and how I shone,_

_But how soon the lights were gone."_

A few months after her birthday Elizabeth was sat in the fort courtyard, surrounded by a gaggle of officers, all offering, with only the noblest of intentions, to escort her home. Before she can choose from the men flattering her, her James comes and sweeps her away, she feels slightly put out, but knows his jealousy is another extension of his love. That evening she kisses him for the first time, and revels in the feeling of being needed. Children can wait.

On the week of her birthday, James' finally proposes. She is elated, though she hides it well. Although she wants to marry him, fulfilling her little dream world, she can't help but feel there is something big coming for her, and she would do well to make him wait. She was close to making Will love her too, and surely she would be less loved once she committed herself to one man, wouldn't she?

She is several weeks into her eighteenth year when Will announces he has loved her since they met. She feels her addiction grow, but the euphoria is dampened by hurting James. He will heal in time she tells herself, but will she?

Elizabeth Swann, now nineteen years old, leaned on the edge of the Black Pearl, gazing into the depths. Why was she pushing Will away, she wondered. She knew she shouldn't have agreed to marry him. She did love him, but he could not love her enough. Will was fine, wherever he was, deep down she knew they'd find him soon. But she still felt guilt about the way that she had, subconsciously mind you, been drawing Jack in, in her fiancé's absence. She didn't want to give him false hope, really. James pulled alongside her, grubbier than she had ever seen him in her life. He smirked at her as she raged an internal battle and teased her "high flying, adored." He remarked at her and hair being tousled in the wind. Angrily she glared at him before returning her eyes to the sea. Why was it that James could always read her like a book? She looked over her shoulder to where Jack was standing by the helm, looking disgruntled at his compass, before catching her eyes and looking away again. Too late, she thought, he was already sunk.

She has killed Jack. She feels the lost of his love acutely. And James, James is gone too. She mourns them both, mourns the lost of her worshippers.

"_The choice was mine, and no one else's, _

_I could have the millions at my feet,"_

Her lovers have been returned to her, before her twentieth birthday, but James is taken as swiftly as he was gifted back to her. Elizabeth imagines it is a cruel god, jealous of her and punishing her in the worse of ways. She grieves again, not only for the loss of love, but the loss of a friend and the shattering of her dream.

"_Give my life to the people I might never meet,_

_Or else, to children of my own."_

She is twenty and she is the Pirate King. They look at her reverently and hush at her every word. She wants to feel accomplished, satisfied and most of all, loved. But she feels no different. She has been lying to herself, she begins to understand. She wishes that James had been more forceful, fought for her, she immediately feels guilty for blaming a dead man, and repents.

"_Remember, I was very young then,_

_Thought I needed the numbers on my side,_

_Thought the more that loved me, the more loved I'd be, _

_But such things cannot be multiplied."_

Will becomes the Captain of the Flying Dutchman for ten years, and she is condemned to live without her lovers. Her title has long since fallen into ruin. Jack has lost the fickle interest he had in her and left to roam the world, theatrical. Some months later she is pregnant, and she hopes that her decisions haven't affected her life so drastically as she had thought. But the strain of the life she has led and the burdens she carries are too much. She miscarries. And in the nine years left of her solitude she mourns her fallen fiancé, his gentle nature and the children they never had.

"_Oh my daughter! Oh my son!_

_Understand what I have done!" _

_**AN: Yes it was depressing and AU, but that's how it was intended. Please don't flame me just because I didn't stick to canon!**_


End file.
